Synopsis

One day, after Squidward turns away a doctor who came to care for the "wailing animal" that was actually his clarinet, he receives a telephone call from his old schoolmate Squilliam Fancyson. The rich, successful and very smug Squilliam presents Squidward with a backhanded offer to play the prestigious Bubble Bowl in place of Squilliam's band, correctly suspecting that Squidward has no band of his own to perform with. Squidward, however, boldly takes him up on the offer and quickly posts flyers around town looking for people to join his band.

The first night of rehearsals, Squidward brings his rented instruments into a practice hall full with townspeople, at least some of whom came for the promise of free refreshments thinking this meant food. Squidward attempts to gauge how much musical experience his prospective band members have. Upon discovering they collectively have, in fact, none, he begins teaching them the basics.

“Is mayonnaise an instrument? “

Over the next few days, the fledgling band is put through the paces of both marching and learning their instruments.

The final night of rehearsals, unfortunately, he finds that the band's skill level is much the same as on the first night. Tensions rise among the band members, and though Squidward tries to stave off the conflict, a fight breaks out. Once the clock hits 8, however, the fight breaks up and everyone starts to head home. Squidward stops them, rebuking them all for not taking his dream seriously. After Squidward leaves in despair, SpongeBob asks the townspeople to think about all of the times Squidward came through for them. Despite drawing a blank, they decide to give practice one more try anyway.

"That's his... eager face."

The day of the performance arrives and Squidward prepares to finalize his band's cancellation, only to find Squilliam waiting for him. Squilliam gleefully points out the overly-eager members of Squidward's band, who have arrived in full uniform and with their instruments at the ready. As they march into the dome, Squidward bemoans the humiliation awaiting him. The Bubble Bowl rises up out of the sea into the center of a human football stadium, replete with "some ugly-looking fish."

The band performing "Sweet Victory"

Squidward, fearing the worst, nervously starts to conduct. However, to his and Squilliam's great surprise, they find that the band is performing spectacularly. SpongeBob belts out a power ballad as the rest of the band members play their instruments with skill and confidence. As the crowd sways in awe and Squilliam falls prey to the literally heart-stopping performance and taken to the hospital, Squidward tosses away his baton and leaps into the air in triumph.

Squid tries to "inspire" Bikini Bottom's doofy denizens into being a tight marching band – but it's like herding kittens. "Sweet Victory" is like the worst Night Ranger – type power ballad in history.

As of January 27, 2019, The Internet Movie Database (IMDB) gives this episode a rating of 9.7/10 based on 1,510 ratings by users.[1] TV.com users give this episode a rating of 9.2/10 based on 322 votes.[2]

"Band Geeks" was ranked #38 during the Best Day Ever event on November 9–10, 2006.

Trivia

Timeline

Friday: The first practice.

8:34 pm: Squidward is driving to the band practice.

8:35 pm: Squidward arrives at band practice late.

Saturday: The band marches through downtown Bikini Bottom while playing.

In the Croatian dub, the episode name is "Kalamarkov Bend" translating to "Squidward's Band."

The flyer for Squidward's band says: Looking to add fulfillment to your dull, dull life? Then become a part of the greatest musical sensation ever to hit Bikini Bottom and be forever adored by thousands of people you don't know. Not to mention free refreshments! Practice begins tonight, 8:30 sharp.

On Nick.com's official SpongeBob site, the original episode video description stated that Squidward only has minutes to put together a band for the Bubble Bowl, yet the band actually has four days to train. It might be referring to the length of the episode.

In the Japanese dub of this episode, the French Narrator and the announcer in the stadium are not heard.

In Latin America, during the day one training, the line where SpongeBob interferes Squidward after he asks everyone to stand in rows of five saying "Is this the part where we start kicking?" Squidward's response was changed. In English, he replies "No SpongeBob, that's a chorus line" (Which in Spanish would translate to "No SpongeBob, esa es una linea de coro"), while in the Latin American version, he replies "No SpongeBob, you think this is Karate?" (Which in Spanish translates to "No SpongeBob, ¿crees que esto es Karate?"). This change could have been made in order to not confuse young viewers, since it is likely that most of them do not have any sort of music compositional knowledge. However, this is countered by the fact that in the Latin American version, while asking the drum line to repeat the line from his clarinet, instead of saying "Drums" ("Tambores" in Spanish), he says "Percussion" ("Percusion" in Spanish), which is a far less common denomination of the instrument.

In the Polish dub, the episode's title is "Kapela Skalmara" translating to "Squidward's Band."

During the song, when SpongeBob is pointing and Sandy is in the background, SpongeBob is wearing the friendship ring from this episode's sister episode "The Secret Box."

This episode and its sister are the last episodes to air before the tragic 9/11 attacks.

Cultural references

The Bubble Bowl is a parody of the Super Bowl, a series of Football games where two Teams with the most Victories compete on who will be the Champion.

Errors

Part of Pearl's skirt is gone when SpongeBob talks to Evelyn and Larry, but reappears in the next scene, and then disappears again.

During the band's performance of "Sweet Victory" when the main cast (minus Mrs. Puff and Plankton) is shown, Mr. Krabs is playing a purple keytar, but during the panning the keytar is green.

During the full band scene, all of the main cast moves in some way but Mr. Krabs does not move at all.

When everyone in the room is talking, SpongeBob and Patrick are sitting next to each other. However, when Patrick asks if mayonnaise is an instrument and when he says "Kicking? I want to do some kicking!," he is sitting next to Sandy.

Then, after getting beaten by Sandy, Patrick returns to a third seat.

Throughout the scenes of the rehearsals, the characters constantly change instruments.

Mr. Krabs asks when they will get free food even though the flyer actually mentioned free refreshments.

When Squidward says that he really expected better of them, Evelyn's skin was green instead of pink.

SpongeBob is an even darker shade of yellow than usual for the entire episode. "The Secret Box" has also got the same error for the entire episode.

When everyone says "blah blah," they all say it normally, but the closed captions show musical notes for this part, as if they were singing.

The entire reason that Squidward has a band is since Squilliam could not make it. However, he shows up anyway meaning he could make it. So, Squidward did not have to make a band.

If not likely, it is possible that Squilliam lied just to publicly humiliate Squidward in front of the crowd.

Patrick's trombone has valves on it, a feature uniquely absent from trombones we see in real life.

When Squidward says "That's his eager face," his mouth is somewhat out of sync with the animation.

When Squidward asks Plankton how the harmonica solo is going, the harmonica is not on the chair. A second later, it is on the chair.

The saxophone is a woodwind instrument, but when Squidward tells the brass section to play, Harold can be seen playing a saxophone.

When Squidward tells the woodwind section to play, one of the players is playing a brass instrument.

When it is day four, all the seats are missing.

Squidward may have moved the chairs between the end of day three and the beginning of day four.

In the shot where Mr. Krabs asks, "When do we get the free food?," Sandy is sitting next to him. Two seats behind Mr. Krabs is Frank. Part of him is shown, but the part that should be shown in Sandy's helmet is not there. It is not a trick with lighting because the part of Fred, who is sitting behind Mr. Krabs, that is in Sandy's helmet is shown.

When Patrick opens his mouth while talking with a trombone noise from being stuck in a trombone, the slider goes downwards from a higher-pitched noise to a lower-pitched noise. Correctly, the slider should have been sliding upwards.

After class was over on the way towards the door, the door flies open revealing Squidward with his arms to his side, as he had not touched the door.

When the band is shown turning from above, Pearl's nose is unreasonably big and covers several people.

In Indonesian dub that aired in Global TV (now GTV), instead of saying "Is mayonnaise an instrument?" Patrick says "Is mine an instrument?" and instead "Horseradish is not an instrument, either," Squidward says "Horse racing is not an instrument, either," However, when the episode was aired in Lativi (now TvOne), the error did not happen.

During the scene where SpongeBob and Plankton harmonize in singing, SpongeBob's eyelid turns blue for a split second.

When the glass dome containing the band originally rises up to the field, it is seen to be approximately 10 yards in diameter and positioned just off of the center of the field. Later shots from within the dome looking outward show an entirely different perspective with many more white lines than would be expected.

Running gags

Patrick kicking Sandy making her attack Patrick with a trombone first and then a trumpet.